Founder Profile

Pew is an independent nonprofit organization – the sole beneficiary of seven individual trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by four generous and committed siblings. Learn more about one of our founders: Mary Ethel Pew.

The court struck down a Colorado law that allowed the state to keep fees and restitution paid by criminal defendants even when their convictions are overturned, saying it was an unconstitutional violation of their rights.

A California lawmaker proposed requiring California colleges and universities to provide students abortion counseling and medication at their health centers instead of referring students to off-campus clinics.

An aggressive effort by Arkansas to carry out its first executions since 2005 stalled for a second time this week as courts blocked lethal injections planned for Thursday, prompting Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson to express frustration at legal delaying tactics.

The bill in front of Republican Gov. Eric Holcomb would keep the state and municipalities from passing laws and ordinances requiring employers to remove questions about criminal records from job applications. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have ban-the-box laws, most of which apply to state or local government hiring.

Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio proposed raising the base price of a pack of cigarettes from $10.50 to $13, which would make New York City home to the costliest cigarettes in the country. The city seeks to reduce the number of its smokers from more than 900,000 to 160,000 over the next three years.

Of the dozen states that have laid out plans for holding their schools accountable under the new federal law known as the Every Student Succeeds Act, 10 are aiming to use chronic absenteeism as a factor in identifying their best and worst schools. So is the District of Columbia.

The measure would override local regulations and require ride-hailing companies to have a permit from the state and pay an annual fee to operate throughout Texas. It also calls for the companies to perform local, state and national criminal background checks on drivers annually.

Regulators in Maryland eased restrictions on the amount of marijuana prospective police officers may have smoked before being hired in the state — a move Baltimore Police Commissioner Kevin Davis championed to boost his department's hiring efforts.